Sanofi agrees to buy US peer Bioverativ for $11.6 b

FILE PHOTO: A logo is seen in front of the entrance at the headquarters French drugmaker Sanofi in Paris REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

PARIS (Reuters): French healthcare group Sanofi has agreed to buy US peer Bioverativ for $11.6 billion, in a deal which Sanofi said would boost its earnings and strengthen its presence in the field of treatments for rare diseases.

Sanofi has agreed to buy all of the outstanding shares of Bioverativ for $105 per share in cash, marking a premium of 64 percent to Bioverativ’s closing price on January 19, 2018.

Bioverativ, a hemophilia drug maker, was separated from Biogen Inc early last year.

The Bioverativ deal also comes after Sanofi had failed to land major takeovers in recent years.

Sanofi lost out on buying California-based cancer specialist Medivation to Pfizer in 2016, and missed out on Swiss biotech company Actelion, which was bought by Johnson & Johnson last year.

“With Bioverativ, a leader in the growing hemophilia market, Sanofi enhances its presence in specialty care and leadership in rare diseases, in line with its 2020 Roadmap, and creates a platform for growth in other rare blood disorders,” said Sanofi chief executive Olivier Brandicourt, in a statement.

“Together, we have a great opportunity to bring innovative medicines to patients worldwide, building on Bioverativ’s success in driving new standards of care with its extended half-life factor replacement therapies,” he added.

Sanofi expects the acquisition to be immediately accretive to its business earnings per share in the 2018 full financial year and up to 5 percent accretive for the following year.

Sanofi is also projected to achieve a return on its invested capital (ROIC) in excess of the cost of capital within three years, while the French group also expects to preserve its strong credit rating, Sanofi added.

FT Quick Guide

Today's Columnists

Admit it. The headline hooked you. Hope you won’t be disappointed. There are no gory scenes featuring dismembered limbs here. However you might read about the long arm of the law being truncated. Perhaps a chilling scene where the mask of the murde

If Sri Lanka wants to get out of the present miserable situation, it needs to make a profound change, a paradigm shift in the way it views at everything including the religious, political and economic issues. Such a change could be made only by loo

Sri Lanka is today facing a domestic labour shortage in some key sectors and industries. While demographic, social attitudes, expansion of the economy and outward labour emigration are contributing to the shortfall. Generally a lack of interest in ce

President Barack Obama stated the following in issuing a memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act on his first day in Office in 2009. “The presumption of disclosure also means agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. A